The word "heavens" (_shamayim_) has in Hebrew as in English a variety of significations. Of material heavens there are, in the quaint language of Poole, "_tres regiones, ubi aves, ubi nubes, ubi sidera_;" or (1) the atmosphere or firmament;[34] (2) the region of clouds in the upper part of the atmosphere;[35] (3) the depths of space comprehending the starry orbs.[36] Besides these we have the "heaven of heavens," the abode of God and spiritual beings.[37] The application of the term "heaven" to the atmosphere will be considered when we reach the 6th and 7th verses. In the mean time we may accept the word in this place as including the material heavens in the widest sense: (1.) Because it is not here, as in verse 8th, restricted to the atmosphere by the terms of the narrative; this restriction in verse 8th in fact implying the wider sense of the word in preceding verses. (2.) Because the atmospheric firmament, elsewhere called heaven, divides the waters above from those below, whereas it is evident that all these waters, and of consequence the materials of the atmosphere itself, are included in the earth of the following verse. (3.) Because in verse 14th the sidereal heavens are spoken of as arranged from pre-existing materials, which refers their actual creation back to this passage. In the words now under consideration we therefore regard the heavens as including the whole material universe beyond the limits of our earth. That this sense of the word is not unknown to the writers of Scripture, and that they had enlarged and rational views of the star-spangled abysses of space, will appear from the terms employed by Moses in his solemn warning against the Sabaean idolatry, in Deuteronomy iv.: "And lest thou lift up thine eyes to the heavens, and when thou seest the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the host of the heavens, shouldest be incited to worship them and serve them which Jehovah thy God hath appointed to all nations under the whole heavens." To the same effect is the expression of the awe and wonder of the poet king of Israel in Psalm viii.: "When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, The moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; What is man that thou art mindful of him?" I may observe, however, that throughout the Scriptures the word in question is much more frequently applied to the atmospheric than to the sidereal heavens. The reason of this appears in the terms of verse 8th.